Terry McAuliffe’s tough immigration talk in ‘07

Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe on Monday launched “Latinos con Terry,” pledging his support for the DREAM Act and lambasting those who use extreme rhetoric on the immigration issue — but in the past, he emphasized a borders-first approach.

“I don’t care if you’re a Democrat or a Republican, we all agree you’ve gotta shut the borders down,” the former Democratic National Committee chair said in 2007, speaking on California public radio. “People who are coming into this nation, taking our jobs.”

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He added at the time that the “business community” supports “some type of process”, but “the first and foremost [priority], which I couldn’t agree more, is we gotta shut these borders down and we gotta spend more money on the enforcement of this and we gotta start today.” In advocating border enforcement, he also said that “these people shouldn’t be coming into our country."

On Monday, however, McAuliffe stressed that “we cannot be having the divisive, hate-filled language that’s gone on. We need to make sure Virginia is open, welcoming.”

His comments come during a month in which Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) likened the children of illegal immigrants to drug mules.

“The issues that Congressman King and others have said, there’s just no place for that in what we need to do to grow our economy,” he said. “We cannot have it and it will not be tolerated when I’m governor of the Commonwealth.”

In the 2007 interview, McAuliffe also said there should be “something for the people who have been here for years and have paid taxes — you know, we’re for the people who have been in this nation who have been paying taxes and raising their family.”

“But for the people who have not been here, who have been here illegally and have taken advantage of the situation, we need to have a plan to get them back to the countries they came from, and more importantly … we have gotta shut these borders down,” he continued.

On Monday, McAuliffe spokesman Josh Schwerin said that the candidate has long been an advocate for both border security and a path to citizenship.

“Terry has consistently talked about the need for a pathway to citizenship for undocumented families who are working hard for the American Dream and not for people who have broken the law while they’ve been here,” he said in a statement. “Everyone agrees that border security is important. What we don’t need is the kind of inflammatory and offensive rhetoric we’ve heard from politicians like Ken Cuccinelli and Steve King.”

At the time, McAuliffe’s comments triggered outrage on liberal blogs like the Daily Kos and caused then-Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) to issue a statement noting that the chairman’s comments didn’t reflect her views.